Subject: Info about the protest in front of a detention center in Sofia, Bulgaria, held on 10.07.2016

Bulgaria, Sofia, 10th July 2016, Protest in front of detention centre in Busmantzi

On 10th July the 4th in general – but the only one in the last 6 years – protest in front of and against the detention center in Busmantzi, a village near Sofia, happened.

In diffrence with the last protest in solidarity with migrants in Sofia city centre, this one was targeted more to the people who are detained there and not as much to bulgarian society in general. This aim was actually successful, as many detained people inside showed up at the bared windows and waved banners demanding “Freedom now!”

The protesters were accepted very well and real communication was established – providing a phone number on which some of the detained people called, sharing their problems with food and medicine conditions, papers and detention in general. Several cases have been already solved.

The protesters shouted different slogans in solidarity with ALL migrants (without the hypocritical division between refugees and “illegal” immigrants), against Fortress Europe, against borders, nations, deportations, fences, police and racist gangs. We were shouting also “Freedom” in arabic and farsi, as well as „Solidarity with all people without papers” in french. Statements in bulgarian, english, french, arabic and farsi were read too. The participants in the protest were equipped with helium balloons and fireworks. Balloons with “Freedom”, written in different lanquages, were let in the air.

The general position of the participants in the protest, locals and internationals, was both against hypocritical racist EU policy but also against brutal police repression of Bulgarian state too. We didn’t face serious problems with police and even after the protest all of us went in front of police station in Sofia to demand immediate liberation of some of our comrades who’ve been arrested on the previous night without any charges. But this is part of another story which ended good as well…

The protest in front of Busmantzi detention center was also small part of the big number of other actions in many of the Balkan countries, from Slovenia through Serbia, which will culminate in the No Border camp in Thessaloniki this month. On the other hand it pointed toward the local situation in Bulgaria where not many actions happen and where migrants still continute to face brutal police repression and racist violence. We will never stop shouting “You are not alone!” and “Freedom now!”. This is not the policy of country that we can be proud with.